


They Buy Me Champagne (Because They Admire My Brain)

by DoreyG



Category: Batman: The Animated Series
Genre: Community: comment_fic, Double Crossing, F/M, Gen, Harley is Very Smart and Deserves Much Cake, Hidden Talents, Moral Ambiguity, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-04-02 20:59:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4073674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/pseuds/DoreyG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"How...?" He's so surprised that he forgets himself for a second, catches himself only at the last moment and corrects his voice and stance before anybody else - hopefully - notices his slip, "Quinn."</p>
            </blockquote>





	They Buy Me Champagne (Because They Admire My Brain)

"How...?" He's so surprised that he forgets himself for a second, catches himself only at the last moment and corrects his voice and stance before anybody else - hopefully - notices his slip, "Quinn."

Harley Quinn, sometimes sidekick and frequent pain, only beams at him. Perched on top of the box, legs tucked under her and mouth busily chewing bubblegum, she looks as cheerily brainless as ever, "Bats!"

...Except she's not.

She _can't_ be.

"Congratulations," he says, very slowly, and pays attention to the way her near-permanent grin widens just a little, "You managed to successfully trap Killer Croc without... Well."

"Getting punched?" Harley provides, with a certain twinkle in her eye. A certain merry spark that he always took for blithe, unrealistic optimism, "landing up in hospital? Getting my arms ripped off?"

"Indeed," he stares for another moment, but Harley gives nothing away. Only keeps smiling, as bright as the sun "...Why?"

"He was planning to murder several busfulls of children, just to prove some silly point," she shrugs, keeps smiling. He suddenly appreciates how much effort it must take, to keep smiling despite everything that she's had to face, "I may be a criminal, and a good one at that, but I'm not a monster."

"No."

"I leave that up to Mister J!"

"I noticed," he pauses for another moment, surveys the scene again. The relative neatness of the area, Croc securely in a box that even he can't break out of, Harley sitting on top and _smiling_ "... _How_?"

Grinning, beaming, practically _vibrating_ with joy as she leans forward and fixed him with the brightest expression of triumph that he's ever seen, "you're telling me that you, the great detective of Gotham, can't figure it out?"

He holds her gaze levelly, for a long minute.

...He drops it, sighs in defeat.

" _Hah_!" And he has to admit, even if reluctantly, that Harley is probably the prettiest criminal he's ever seen exulting, "well, mister detective, it's quite simple when you actually think of it. I just talked to him!"

He stares at her blankly, for another long moment, "you...?"

"I'm a psychiatrist, Bats!" Harley chirps, bounces brightly in her perch, "I'm _good_ at getting people to trust me, remember? I told Croc that I'd _help_ him, instead of just flailing in with fists and justice up the wazoo."

"You told him that you'd help him," he says very slowly "...By luring him into what I assume is a shipping container?"

"I convinced him that his original plan was too loud, too _obvious_ ," she sniffs, offers him a wink to show that she's not _too_ offended, "and that he was liable to get himself sentenced to death again. I told him that I knew folk, had _connections_. That I could sneak him into position without anybody noticing, and that all he had to do was keep on the down low for a while."

"So...?"

"He still doesn't know that I double crossed him," Harley offers triumphantly.

"Even...?"

"Even now, because the box is soundproof!" She tilts her head, just keeps grinning, "you can get your police friends to cart him off, and he won't know a _thing_ 'til you've already got him back in Arkham!"

He stares at her for a long few seconds, speechless.

"You're _welcome_ , Bats!"

He has the feeling that he's going to have to update a few files.


End file.
